Certainty of Ends

Derek Morgan pondered the twist of crappy fate that led him to be the suspect in a child’s murder. Didn’t they understand? He wouldn’t do something like that. He couldn’t do something like that.

Gordinsky was a piece of crap police officer who did the least amount of police work to make the most of his position. He couldn’t care less who killed those boys. Probably didn’t care until Morgan had showed up, convenient as hell, and provided the asshole with a suspect and scapegoat.

But even Gordinsky wasn’t his major problem. Yeah, he maybe an asshole and needed to be fired from the job but he was working on finding a killer. Too bad his focus had been on Derek all along. Hotch was going to be a hell of a lot harder to convince not to go digging. He knew it was going to come up but every man had his secrets, even Hotch kept his. Why can’t a man have secrets?

His mother must be worried. He hated ruining her birthday. Even if she did want lots of grandbabies. She couldn’t know either. She found out she would be ashamed to have him as a son. She wouldn’t want to lay eyes on him ever again. He wouldn’t. No one should have to see that part of him. Keep it private, keep it hidden and everything would be alright. No one would be hurt.

The shame, the memories came flooding back. This could not get out. No one could know. Why the hell had Gordinsky shown up then? Why the hell had he focused on him as a kid? So he screwed up. Every kid screwed up. But him, his screw up was . . . Not going there. Not now, not ever. It was in the past. Nothing he could do anything about now.

Dammit, Gideon. Why the hell? Secrets, can’t a man have secrets. Privacy. You don’t need to know. You can’t know. You find out and it’s the damn end of the world. I don’t care what you say. You would never see me the same, treating me with kid gloves as if I would break, and boxer gloves because you would go overboard and keep that damn profile in your head. You’d see me through victim colored glasses and I don’t need that man. I am not a victim. I’m an agent man.

You find out and it’s the end. I know for a fact that it would be the end. Then Buford would win. Keep on winning.

It’s not just the shame though. It’s the nothingness that presses, that engulfs my insides as if it were a giant wave crashing over me, suffocating me. Hotch and Gideon would never see me again. Never see the man that I am. Not the victim. I am not that kid anymore. Can’t be that kid anymore. That kid was lost. And a good man, a good man took him under his wing and was like a father to him. My own father gone, what was I to do.

He was a good man. Fishing trips, playing football. Things fathers and sons did. And things fathers and sons didn’t do. Things no man should do to a child. Not a father to a son. That wasn’t a father. He wasn’t a father. No way was he a father. The shame. The disappointment. I wanted him to be proud of me, to love me. Fathers love their sons. He said he loved me. He lied to me. The bastard lied to me. He didn’t love. I didn’t know it then but he didn’t love me. He used me. Told me he was proud of me when I did what he wanted but while he didn’t come out and say it, he was disappointed when I didn’t listen. When I failed. When I failed him. Disappointing him was something I never wanted to do. I could toss a ball but I couldn’t toss him. He had a damn good offense and used it. He knew that I wouldn’t understand what he was doing. Only the disappointment and lack of pride. I wanted to be somebody in his eyes. And I was. But not the somebody I was. Not the somebody I needed to be. Not the real somebody that lay down deep and he hurt.

He hurt me. He hurt me. Why? Why did he hurt me? What did I do wrong? I did everything to make him happy, to make him proud. He said he wasn’t disappointed. He lied. He was disappointed. He hurt me. He touched all the deep parts of me and hurt me with his poisonous touch and said he was proud of me. And I believed him. I believed him. He lied and I believed him. He hurt me. He used me. I wasn’t important to him. I was just a body, to mold, to touch, to destroy, to cause pain. I was nothing. No one. I wasn’t a son. I was a body. Hell, I wasn’t even that.

Said no? I was just a kid. A kid. In awe of a man who treated me like a son and acted like he was my father. Was my father. But he wasn’t a father. Never was a father. Just a wolf in sheep’s clothing, preying on kids, boys who didn’t understand.

But I’m not a boy anymore. I’m a man. He can’t hurt me any more. But he made me who I am today. And that hurts all the more. The man who destroyed me, created me.

Hotch, Gideon, don’t look at me. I don’t want to see the shame in your eyes. You shouldn’t see this deep into me. This isn’t who I am. I am not the victim. I’m not the boy who once was. You see that deep, you don’t want me on the team anymore. Can’t be on the team. Not this broken boy. Not this man who isn’t a man who’s been playing at being a man to hide the lost, broken boy.

Don’t look in their eyes. Don’t want to see. Don’t want to see the shame and pity and disappointment and disgust.